Secondary to Flight
by Yankoku
Summary: Keiko leaves for college, abandoning dropout Yusuke to a mediocre life on his own - but one half-koorime won't let Yusuke go to waste. Shounen-ai; implied yaoi. A one-shot HxY.


It was a dark and stormy - actually, it wasn't. But cold rain trickling off of Yuusuke's slick hair and down his back with thunder crashing overhead would have been far, far more appropriate than the jovial sunlight that blatantly challenged his mood. Yuusuke hurled one of Keiko's duffel bags into a characterless, rusty vehicle. A startling, guilty sound of glass shattering resulted, then his murky eyes opened wider and he cursed under his breath.  
  
"Yuusuke!" called a perfectly pitched, college-bound voice. Yuusuke slammed the trunk and spun around. "Yeah, what now?" he replied in a griping, aberrant tone. No guilty stammering for him - a perfect 'badass innocence' act was standard issue after many years as a juvenile delinquent.  
  
"I've got...to get going." Keiko laced her fingers behind Yuusuke's neck, which she could still do easily. Keiko had grown tall, and was still rather beanpolish - a source of great amusement for Yuusuke when he wanted to tease her.  
  
Keiko softly rested her mouth against his, her pretty, heart-shaped face tilted sideways. Candidly, the boy hadn't expected much better in public. Keiko wasn't one for steamy public displays and never had been. She pulled back, perfectly controlling the way her hands slid off his neck. "I'll visit as soon as I can. I love-"  
  
"Just leave. I hate long goodbyes, anyways. So, you don't have to come back and visit the dumb townie kid either. No obligations." Yusuke didn't throw the girl whose love declaration he'd cut off so many times a second glance as he walked in hushed anger toward his home.  
  
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^  
  
Yuusuke Urameshi.  
  
Dropout at age sixteen.  
  
Tenth grade education.  
  
Girlfriend: Big-time university, now.  
  
Mother: DUI wreck.  
  
Lost his...everything.  
  
Yuusuke sprawled on the floor of his living room, carefully avoiding the place where his mother had, so many times, done the same. His thoughts of a pretty face and cold rain faded into a bland puddle. He had taken ill of staring, with dirty skin and rumpled hair, imagining what lay beyond his ceiling.  
  
And now there was this annoying -banging- sound. Knocking, thumping, wait. Someone at the door...  
  
"Come in," he croaked. As though it would be locked - there was nothing worth stealing. If someone took it upon himself or herself to come in and shoot him, he really wouldn't mind. He wouldn't do it himself.  
  
There was the creak of not-so-well oiled hinges, but no footsteps. Yuusuke looked sideways and gave a small, jumping movement in surprise that someone was next to him. /Am I that zoned?/ He sat up, and his stomach swirled cruelly as punishment. He really was in bad shape.  
  
"You stink." Cold, flat words as usual. Yuusuke staggered to his feet, though his seated position was probably closer to Hiei's height. "Want to make something of it?" "Gladly. Go take a shower. I refuse to converse with you beforehand," Hiei replied smartly. Yuusuke almost said 'fine, get the hell out' before realizing how much he longed for company. It was a startling feeling. He made a noncommittal noise and stumbled toward the bathroom.  
  
The warm water and soft soap easily forced his skin to stop crawling. And as used to having a head greasy enough to fry an egg on as he was, Yuusuke couldn't stand to have his precious hair actually...oh, shudder, dirty.  
  
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Hiei gazed with mild distaste around Yuusuke's living room. The couch was littered with trash, and a narrow view of kitchen proved no better. How could anyone actually live in this horrible situation of a house?...home.  
  
Hiei still had not been stimulated to move when Yuusuke returned from his shower. The small, fiery half-koorime couldn't help but note how much more Yuusuke looked like himself. As many dirty things as Yuusuke did, he seemed to Hiei to be at all times clean. No one knew him as Hiei did; no one knew the secret as the youkai did. No one else knew that Yuusuke was only a little lower than the angels.  
  
"Can we leave your garbage heap already?" Hiei said scathingly.  
  
"If His Royal Arrogance so wishes," replied Yuusuke in an equally contemptuous tone. He could see actual and unimagined dark clouds claiming the sky outside now, giving him the impression that it was cold out. Hiei laughed silently at the half-seraphim mental picture that stole Yuusuke's position beside him. A halo held up by wires, one dusty gray wing. Surely, whether Yusuke went to hell or into the sky, he would always look like that.  
  
Yuusuke didn't bother to shut the door behind the duo, but Hiei did. They took the route of a few side streets, going really nowhere but always turning the same direction in an eerily synchronized way. "What did you want anyway? Dragging me out of my house..." Yuusuke went on in this vein for some time before Hiei interrupted. "Koenma desires that you get up off your lazy posterior and, at the least, train. There's been some stirrings-"  
  
"Stirrings?" snorted Yuusuke. "In the Makai, right? Shouldn't you call them shakings?"  
  
"Why in all the worlds would I call them that?"  
  
"Doesn't it just seem more appropriate?"  
  
"Oh, let me think...no," Hiei lied. 'Shakings' did seem more appropriate. Somehow.  
  
Hiei looked to Yuusuke's back, slowly drawn into a trance by his wing again. It was turning slightly whiter now...the dust was falling...  
  
And so was dusk. A starless blue spread over them, with clouds obscuring their view of the universe. There was a deep ache in Hiei for it to be a starry night.  
  
"You got me up already, now," said Yuusuke, flashing Hiei a surreptitious look. "You could go."  
  
"Hn."  
  
The universal answer. Hiei could tell Yuusuke hated that sound of it, and that was why he said it. "Are you still broken up over the ningen female?" queried Hiei boredly after more silence led them deeper into the city and into the park. Yuusuke didn't answer.  
  
Hiei took this as fuel. "I don't know what you saw in her. She was too skinny, and hardly worth anything with how she was going on about schoolwork every time I saw her. Kurama and I were sure you'd go for someone with more sex appeal -"  
  
Hiei didn't realize he'd been hit until Yuusuke was on top of him, in the grass, and about to do it again. This was a fine opportunity for Hiei. A swift knee into Yuusuke's stomach did the trick. Yuusuke was stunned just long enough for Hiei's swift hand to find the pressure point on his neck that ensured the spirit detective would stay below consciousness until Hiei let go.  
  
Hiei shivered and leered a cold smile down at Yuusuke as rain trickled down his back.  
  
Nothing could suit Hiei's purposes better. A beautiful boy laid at his mercy, and tonight...  
  
Tonight Hiei would be a little closer to the angels.  
  
~Owari~ 


End file.
